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India Sees 50 Million New Web Users In 6 Months

Global Marketing News – 7th September 2015

India sees 50 million new web users in 6 months

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has revealed that India’s online population has just reached 350 million, an increase of 50 million from just 6 months ago.

60% of Indians go online via mobile phone, with the number of mobile internet users predicted to increase by over 100 million in the next 2 years alone.

The majority of Indians online come from urban areas. Research by We Are Social suggests that around three quarters of urban Indians use the internet, compared to just 7% of rural Indians.

There are also significant sex differences, with men outnumbering women online by a ratio of 3 to 1.

In an effort to get a more diverse range of Indians online, the government, and internet companies are engaging in a variety of initiatives.

As many rural Indians do not speak English, big Indian sites such as the ecommerce site Snapdeal have started producing sites in local languages such as Tamil and Hindi.

And Google’s Help Get Women Online initiative runs forums with the aim of encouraging more women to use the internet.

Twitter ad platform expands to over 200 countries

Twitter has expanded its ad platform to over 200 countries.

Some of the new countries that can now use the ad platform are Bangladesh, Greece, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines.

Twitter’s ad platform allows advertisers to target their audience with promoted tweets using targeting tools, with objective based campaigns and reports to help users understand the progress of campaigns.

Around 100,000 advertisers use Twitter, bringing in around 450 million US dollars a month to the social network.

Twitter is one of the most popular micro-blogging platforms in the world, with almost 240 million monthly active users.

Ukrainian start-up CartFresh to expand into rest of Europe

The Ukrainian start-up CartFresh has said it is ready to expand into the rest of Europe.

CartFresh is an online grocery delivery platform that allows shops to sell their products online.

It is already popular in Ukraine, where 4 the country’s top 10 grocery retailers use the platform.

It is free for businesses to set up and run their ecommerce site on CartFresh, with CartFresh making money from commissions on sales and delivery fees.

The platform, formerly known as Zakaz, changed its name to make it more internationally-friendly.

A spokesperson said it was not targeting any particular country in its expansion and that it simply hoped to bring “an awesome experience of online shopping to European customers”.

Young Vietnamese and Malaysians prefer chat apps to seeing friends in person

Research by Epinion has revealed that young people in Vietnam and Malaysia prefer texting and using instant messaging apps to meeting up with their friends in person.

The study asked young people aged 13 to 21 their preferred method of communicating with their friends.

In Vietnam, half said that they preferred to use chat apps or text, with 30% saying they preferred face-to-face meetings and less than 10% saying they preferred telephone calls and emails.

In Malaysia, the results were even more extreme, with 65% saying they preferred texts and chat apps, and just 17% saying they preferred face-to-face meetings.

Google Street View… for cats!

And finally, officials from the Japanese city of Onomichi have launched a Google Street View-style app from the perspective of a cat.

The images were created using a camera held just 20cm off the ground, with icons on the app signifying the presence of a cat in the image.

Onomichi is well-known for its large cat population, and even has a road called “Cat Lane”.

Officials hope that the app will help to attract cat-loving tourists to the city.

Cal O'Connell

Lead Videographer at Webcertain

Cal is the Lead Videographer at Webcertain. He presents the daily Global Marketing News Bulletin as well as working behind the scenes as a video editor and production member. With 6 years of experience as a professional filmmaker and videographer, Cal provides Webcertain with the ability to create video content for its ever-expanding catalogue of video content.